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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25736080">dark honey</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosewilts/pseuds/rosewilts'>rosewilts</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, F/M, M/M, Other, bro idk lol, esp after whats going to happen next lmao, five needs a hug jesus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 01:58:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,873</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25736080</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosewilts/pseuds/rosewilts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>love is a kind of killing. don’t you know that, five?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is a remake of my previous work 'dark honey', whom I abandoned over a yr ago but now I have the sudden urge to rewrite. maybe I'll write another chapter or not? idk lmk what u think</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Five, why the fuck are we here?"</p><p>It's 1942 Nazi-occupied France, twenty two minutes and thirty seven seconds after the second apocalypse-induced time jump that caused the Hargreeves 6 to end up here, dancing and hiding inside the menacing shadows of Paris' vandalised apartments. They weave expertly past lazed soldiers with loose trigger fingers as the dry spring winds of a corrupt Paris summer bring the fevered burn of gunpowder into each of the siblings' lungs. Landing right here in the middle of what will futuristically be known universally as the greatest war of espionage, of all the possible of fucking timelines, Allison curses as a sewer rat runs just ill of her bloodied maroon boot. All six Hargreeves - those in the flesh and with a thriving beating heart -  seven, including the dead one drenched now in light, Klaus reprehends to each of them through the darkened alleys they weave through, almost as though he's lost another part of himself. He makes an issue by pointing to each of their hearts when he - backed by an equally awakened Vanya - is quick to bitterly remind all six of them who's kindness made them siblings and not just the experiments of a cold blooded sadist in the first place. At this, for a single, fleeting second, Five allows himself to consider the circumstances of Six's - his little brother's- murder and Five's heart wrenches in its solemn place in the folds of his chest, teeth breeching moist skin as metallic seeps flesh, until he realises he's been biting his tongue so long the entirety of his mouth is filled with it, and he silently forbids himself from thinking of his kind eyed brother and his injusticed death. And how, most of all, Five failed to protect him. Five, as he teleports himself from snapping one feeble Nazi's neck to another, paving safe passage for his siblings who waddle along, forbids himself of thinking of Ben, of his Ben, of Sparrow Ben, of any single possibility of any Ben, knowing that if he wanted to keep his sanity to save the rest of them, he best not think of him, lest his heart betray him and burst from the fissures of his chest in utter gut wrenching guilt.</p><p>Each six hearts dips past stray bullets and tries not to get caught by the facist stained government and their cruel, unthinking rifles. However, despite the muffed protests, questions and groans of his friable siblings as they follow his lead and weave behind shadows, Five, fatigued and disgruntled, nursing aching gunshots from the labour of the longest two weeks of his fifty something years of life, soldiers on through the darkest of nights.</p><p>He knows why he is here.</p><p>He knows why his subconscious thought of this lonely, cold, fascist place over every single safe possibility in the history of the multiverse. He knows why he chose the armed tanks over Dolores' safety, over the logical choice of the year he and his siblings were born. Over the unknown of the Sparrow Academy. Over the years that he and the Hargreeves were alive and content, hearts naive yet alive and true and loving and full of possibility.</p><p>Five knows why his subconscious chose this timeline. Why, in the last moments of the Earth as we know it, in his moment of absolute desperation, in his need to help the only people in his life he could ever love, he chose right here, right now.  He chose this place. He knows why he thought of this place over everything.</p><p>It's time he pays the first (and only) person he failed to kill a long awaited visit.</p><p>The first person in the timeline whose assassination, if he succeeded, would have caused the end of the world.</p><p>At least, in this timeline.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, are you deaf or what? Who the <i>fuck</i> were they? The Sparrow Academy? What kind of ass licking, self serving, dick name is <i>that</i>? " Diego's hushed rage belts Five from the lower end of the dodgy staircase the siblings slyly skulk by, narrowly dodging the earshot of patrolling soldiers, as Five snaps back out of the harrowing curse of his thoughts to focus on his 30 something old brother. Five considers humouring Diego and the glinting point of a knife in his brother's hand for a bit, maybe add in a slide comment or two that they wouldn't <i>have</i>to be in this situation if Diego was smart enough to figure out his girlfriend set them up or, better yet, he wants to point out that Diego's knife isn't at his throat yet so Diego must sense the urgency of the situation at hand so could he <i>please</i> shut up because his abdomen is screaming bloody murder from the bullet wound from the first apocalypse and  god <i> he can't remember the last time he actually slept and -- </i></p><p>
  <i></i>
</p><p>"Diego-" 
</p><p>Just out of the corner of Five's overcautious and all seeing eyes, Vanya, illuminated by the ivory of 2am starlight, attempts a gentle hand on Diego's shoulder as Luther, Allison and Klaus exchange looks, almost if they couldn't decide to be more flabbergasted at the fact Vanya is actively trying to calm Number Two down or if it was actually working. Diego, aloof and meeting Vanya's mitigated gaze, softens slightly at her gentle touch and quietens, much to Five's relief and Klaus' astonishment. 
</p><p>Diego beats back halfheartedly under his breath, yet with equal distaste, silent under Vanya's touch. "Jesus, the <i>Sparrow Academy</i>. How fucking pretentious."

Five, despite the thirteen armed soldiers he just counted at the sole army checkpoint that blocks their ragged path to his long awaited destination, smiles. </p><p>

 <i>Six armed soldiers on the left, seven on the right. I just need to tel-</i> </p><p>"Also," Luther, who hasn't spoken a word since Five teleported them in a sheer panic away from the Sparrow Academy, at the sight of his very alive dead brother, violently whispers to him as his broad figure threatens the dodgy staircase's longitivtiy the longer he stands on it: "Why, pray tell, are we in Nazi occupied France and not, y'know, in 2019?"</p><p><i>You wouldn't understand,</i> Five wants to grunt, obviously annoyed at Luther's unwanted comment, ducking behind the wood of the months drenched bloodied fence, a hair shy away from catching the soldier on duty's attention. Still unpleasantly stuck in his thirteen year old form, Five stuffs his shaking hands into the pockets of the school boy shorts and curses to himself. As much as he hates the fact that he has to be here again, after all these years, just to take from them again. After abandoning them in their time of need, bleeding and violent and betrayed and crying in his own sullied arms, reaping them, a Commission rogue spy, who needed to be saved from the murderous hands of Nazi soldiers. Who needed to be saved from the teeth of the Handler. Of whom he left them to be consumed by, stealing their suitcase from bruised hands, because he asked for an old friend's help and they obliged. </p><p>
  <em>Anything for my family, right?</em>
</p><p>Swallowing the concoction of anxiety and guilt that threatens to consume him at the thought of such reunion, Five's heart thrums in the deep hallows of his chest. He keeps returning to the same thought as he continues to guide his siblings through checkpoint and patrolled streets of central Paris: did they survive?  Would they ever forgive him if they had survived? No - <em>have</em> they forgiven him? How much time has passed since he left them to go back into the arms of the people who abused them? For him, it's been eight years. For them? He doesn't know. </p><p>He doesn't want to know.</p><p>He, as a fellow pawn and victim of the higher order, hopes they are dead. <br/>
It would be the only way they could escape from a life of running.</p><p>In this moment, he hopes that whatever God above has given them, the person who briefly in this time made him feel normal, sheer <i>mercy</i>. He hopes someone at the Commission somehow managed to outsmart and kill them fast. Figured out how to cheat their oh-so clever mind as the Handler's agent (now, Five knows is named Lila) chased them through the narrow streets of Paris they know so well just to kill them quick, despite Five's own multiple failures to do so.  He hopes Lila would have not fallen for the abundance of humaness in the iris of their unwavering eyes, the cockiness of their smile, the tender, fleeting touch of their fingers to his cheek and a silent whisper in their ear that <em>i know you want out too, to help your family and i can help you, i want to help you, so just listen to me, okay?</em> just like he did, and Five hopes Lila didn't hesitate to pull the trigger and occupy their fantasy just like he did.</p><p>However, as he and his siblings climb the crumbling brick walls of a 1940s Paris he finds so familiar, weaving through the hallow back alleys like diseased rats, he knows his hopes of their death are futile. He knows that if they, such a timid, weak creature managed to outsmart<em> him</em>, all those years ago, how they managed to cheat death and smile in his face so wide and so confident, declaring that he would never hurt them, not even on Dolores' life, no one else - not even Lila, not even Vanya would be able to pierce through their already scarred flesh. They would simply smile in the girls' faces and run.</p><p>He, as if betraying himself, <em>smiles</em> at the thought.</p><p>And, perhaps if Luther had not betrayed Vanya, if Vanya had not met Harold Jenkins, and if, Five contemplates, he would have arrived in the future sooner, the un-assassination of the russian-turned-rogue spy who secretly changed world war two for the better, with the Sparrow Academy was undone, their death would have been the sole of the apocalypse. </p><p>However, as Five leads the misfit siblings up the flight of seven chipped peach oak wood staircases of the apartment war ridden building, halting just outside the baby blue drabbed double door entrance of the apartment he knows all too well, Five feels as if he cannot do this anymore. His fingers, still stuffed in the blue cotton of his school boy uniform, itch nervously at the fabric until it forces the material to cave, until all he can feel is the narrow of his thumb gnawing at the raw flesh of his thigh. He knows if they are still living here, it could not have been less than six months since his betrayal, a wound still so bloody, and the guilt and anticipation licks his throat raw.</p><p>It isn't until Klaus speaks and arouses him from the abyss of his thoughts and Luther places a worried hand on his shoulders does Five realise just how long he and the others have been standing outside of fheir door.</p><p>"So --<em> uhhh</em> -- little baby Five, is there a certain reason why we've been standing outside these lovely baby blue doors or are we just going to wait here until Vanya here decides to go all apeshit on us again before you tell us why we're here in what, <em>correct me if I'm wrong</em>, looks like Nazi occupied Paris instead of the safety of the - I don't know - years where our very much alive baby brother Ben was a 2010 emo anime villain? Or - <em>y'know</em> - our dearest daddy decided to create a completely new team of us to save the world from impending doom that literally happened minutes ago or did I just imagine that?"</p><p>The siblings all hum in agreement.</p><p>Despite the fear that had previously consumed him seconds ago, or due to the abundance of it, an overwhelming sense of spite fuels his very tiny five foot three being as he turns to face Klaus, his famous <em>shit eating </em>smile baring crown over all else. Hands still in pockets, he cocks his head towards the double doors, tone of voice dripping in malevolence.</p><p>"For your <em>information </em>Klaus, and I <em>definitely</em> didn't want it to come to this, if <em>any </em>of you had a working brain cell between the five of you, any single one of you would have figured out that the person who lies behind these doors is the <em>only</em> person in the history of the <em>entire </em>timeline who has the capability of <em>understanding</em> and <em>stopping </em>the apocalypse from ever happening."  He scowls intently, feeling the stares of doubt from his siblings baring into his flesh, as if he hadn't of risked his entire ass into getting them all to the safest - and most dangerous -  possibility he could think of. As much as he hates to admit it, being here in front of the doors he'd hoped he'd never see again (let alone the person) he knows what he has to say in order to convince his siblings to trust them, to trust <em>him</em>, is something he has never said in his entire life.</p><p>His voice is barely above a whisper, small yet delicate, the memory of them fresh in his mind, but it's enough that his siblings hear his pride cutting through the rarity of his warmth:</p><p>"The person who lives behind these doors is smart. Perhaps.... the only person who will ever be smarter than me." He stutters, words bitter in his mouth. "<em>Barely,</em> at times. <em>Sometimes! ..... </em>But I trust them. Completely. Utterly. <em>With all my heart.</em> I swear on your lives ---- I swear on Dolores' life."</p><p>Allison whose voice is hesitant, slow and yet knowing, chimes in: "....But?"</p><p>Five drops his shoulders at Allison's single world, cursing how good she is at reading him, swallows down the vile disgust that devours his organs raw, and swears that Allison knows everyone better than they know themselves. </p><p><em>Fuck, </em>Five's frail image shakes with guilt, with the memory of their dying, <em>begging </em>figure in his arms, pleading for him to <em>don't </em><em>leave me, please, don't make me go back to them, old man! Five, don't leave me here with them, with the Handler, you know what they'll do to me!, </em>. </p><p>It hurts, if only just a little.</p><p>Choking back the bile, Five continues, staring at the twenty-something year old carpet of the apartment complex he remembers dancing with them on.</p><p>"<em>But,</em>" The breath he draws is long, and he kicks the stray ends of the carpet, avoiding his siblings' gazes. "I-I tried to kill them. Twice. And then, after years, we trusted each other more than I nor Dolores has ever trusted anyone else, and I'm sure they felt the same. <em>I even left Mr Pennycrumb with them.</em>  Then..... <em>then</em> in the height of our trust, I willingly left them to die, <em>horribly, sadistically,</em> to the hands of..." His gaze flickers towards Diego's own, hesitating to say Lila, her name on his lips, to spare Diego of the pain. Five's sure it was her that almost killed them, the undying. The chameleon. He wants to say her name, because it hurts Five to know who hurt them, who pushed him to hurt them. He wants to say it not because it would hurt Diego, but because it would hurt <i>him</i> for not recognising <i>her</i> sooner rather than later. He wants to say her name because it makes it real, because it makes the betrayal real, because it means he wasn't the one to kill them, because if he recognised Lila sooner he would have avoided Diego the agony. But Five doesn't say her name, because he loves his brother, and his brother says he loves her.</p><p>Five sighs, his heart beating heavy in his chest and the bullet wound in his stomach demanding. " ...agency to save all of you." And with as much dismissal he could muster in this moment which threatens to consume him, Five clears his throat, unwilling to meet nor challenge any of his siblings as he hears them shuffle, digesting his uncharacteristic words.  Annoyingly, he can hear Klaus' expressed mortification, Allison's confusement, Diego's dumbfoundment. Luther's mouth shapes an '0', awkwardly withdrawing the comfort of his palm from the knot of Five's inherently tensed shoulders. </p><p>Five continues, almost feeling that if he didn't, he'd either tear the stingy carpet apart or throw each of himself down the stairs, if only to avoid the ominous doom lurking behind the baby blue doors behind his small statue. "Unfortunately for us, they survived. Unfortunately for me, they are unable to die. Yet, fortunately for the future, they... survived." <em>Of course they did, </em>he thinks, <em>Dolores always said they would. I always knew they would.</em> "The only question here is," he draws a sharp breath in, willing his every being to gaze towards the heavy weight those blue doors hide, and his chest aches at the thought, at the regret, at the answer to the question he dreads. "In order for them to help us, they need to forgive me. Otherwise we, and the entire fate of the world, are fucked."</p><p>The doors jolt open.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. an unfair quid quad pro</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>five reunites with old ghosts. he gets close to losing it all.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They are met with silence.</p><p>Scents of musk and gunpowder succumbs the siblings’ senses and earns a delighted noise from Vanya and Luther, spotting bookcases encompassed with novels in the far-off corner. And yet, there is no one. Empty. Nothing but the oddity of dusty, mis-matched furniture that litters the dim candlelit rooms of the apartment, devoid of life. No one has lived here for a long, long time.</p><p>They knew he was coming.</p><p>
  <em>How?</em>
</p><p>This was a setup.</p><p>
  <em>Shit. </em>
</p><p>The open faded green doors creak idly in the spring wind from the single open window, beckoning the siblings closer. But for Five, they mock. <em>Face me if you’re a brave enough man.</em></p><p>Five has seen this strategy before. The empty room begging to be filled. Hade’s call to the greedy doors of death. Of course he has. He was their partner, after all.</p><p>“Guys, I <em>reeeally </em>don’t think we should go in there…” Anxiety washes through Klaus’ voice as Five is knocked out of his thoughts. The siblings peer over at Klaus, and it is almost as if he is listening to someone only he can see and for once, Five is astounded, taken back for a second, knowing his brother is right.</p><p>
  <em>He’s sober?</em>
</p><p>“Klaus, please. It’s empty.” Luther scoffs in hushed whispers, “I don’t know if you’re too high out of your mind to remember that you’re seeing <em>ghosts, </em>but whatever horror you’re seeing, they can’t hurt us. You’re going to be fine, I promise.”</p><p>Before Klaus has time to explain, Luther walks forward, followed by the rest of his siblings. Five panics, too fatigued to teleport, but, not for the first time in his life, he is too late.</p><p>A circular metal ball rattles the wooden floor as the siblings enter the apartment. On impact with Luther’s boot, the ball explodes, emitting a blinding white light across the room. Suddenly, Five sees and hears nothing and everything and all white at once: three silenced pistol shots, Klaus cursing, the grunts of Luther, Vanya calling for Allison and someone collapsing onto the ground.</p><p>But Diego is fighting someone within the light.</p><p>As the light fades, Diego throws his right forearm to block a punch to his head but loses his balance as Luther stumbles to help his brother recover. The person, someone Five knows all too well, clad in dark trousers and a bloody hoodie, takes this time to remove the silencer off their pistol, unfazed by the giant and man in front of them. Luther and Diego peer at each other in a silent allegiance as Luther makes the next move, ramming full force towards them, slamming them against the wall. Blood emits from the person’s mouth on impact and sounds of bones breaking echo throughout the room.</p><p>But the person smiles. “Five never said you were <em>this</em>strong. I think you broke my entire ribcage, big man.” They laugh as they heave for air, spitting the access blood onto Luther’s face. There are unsettling sounds of bones moving. “You must be Luther.”</p><p>Luther releases the person and stumbles back in confusement. Unfazed, however, is Diego as he moves forward to ram his knee into the fissures of the person’s but is quickly shut down as Five yells at him to stop. Diego comes to a halt, about to question Five but is taken aback as Five’s ex-partner lunges forward and takes Diego from behind, wrapping their left arm around his throat so hard Diego visibly chokes.</p><p>“Sorry about that one,” they whisper into Diego’s ear as their right hand holds a gun towards a pale eyed Vanya. Their eyes gesture towards Allison, unconscious on the floor. “Met her at her wedding in 1962. Knew her husband; he was a Commission job. Imagine my surprise when I learnt from an friend in my old workplace that she was the influencer one amongst you lot.” They sigh as Diego struggles in their grasp. “I’m immune to a lot of things but I’m not immune to a pretty voice.”</p><p>“Hey.”</p><p>The harrowing shrike of their gaze cuts to him and their hold on Diego’s neck snakes tighter. Diego gasps, cursing, clawing at the scarred flesh on their forearms and draws blood. But the wound closes as soon as it opens. Of course it does.</p><p>“Five,” Diego squeaks, face a closer shade to blue than naturally human, “fucking do something!”</p><p>Five swallows. “I’m sorry,” His voice cracks. Maybe it was the weight of these last two weeks devouring him and his pride whole as he finally comes to the realisation that <em>god, </em>he missed them.</p><p>He sees their eyes flicker, taking in his younger appearance. “Fuck, Five?” They scoff, laughing. But it’s half hearted. It’s full of grief. Five’s not sure but if tears well up in the caves of their eyes. “When I kept teasing you for your old appearance, I didn’t think you were <em>that </em>soft skinned.”</p><p>He ignores the comment: <em>you’re buying time. </em>“I need you.”</p><p>It hurts him to admit that.</p><p>“But don’t you remember?” Their voice: silent, mocking. Or are they just full of anguish? Five feels a knife twist in his gut from the guilt of what he did to them. Some part of him in that moment wonders, <em>could he have saved his siblings a different way?</em></p><p>“Don’t you remember saying that there is nothing left between us?”</p><p> </p><p><em>There is nothing left between us. </em>Five remembers saying that.</p><p>But what else is there to remember?</p><p> </p><p><em>The pultruding bangs. The drying crust of blood under the beds of his ripped fingernails. The ragged thumps of his weary heart frivolous in the hallows of his otherwise empty chest, every thunderous beat reminding him, proclaiming, singing </em>I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive!<em>The sudden shock of the weight of his enemy’s once ravenous body going limp, collapsing still on his heaving chest and the lull of relief that fuels his withered bones with it.</em></p><p><em>Shit</em>, shit.</p><p><em>Five tries to recollect himself as blood rushes to return to his head and his breath sturdies, but the ghosts of the enemy’s wilted hands still linger, violent and suffocating, at the nape of his mulberry stained throat. The bruise a bitter love letter stemmed from the hands of Death.</em><em>His father’s voice lingers in his veins: </em>She’s always waiting, Number Five<em>.</em>I told you so.<em>Five shakes from it, like a lamb on the cutting floor, as his fingers work slowly to free his neck from the grasp. </em></p><p>
  <em>“Quid quad pro. I saved your life – again, might I add.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The German summer sun is shining like it’s a Californian noon. Five checks his now blood wet watch from his place under the dead enemy body as he lies on the golden cobblestone road. It’s nine in the morning.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I had it handled.” A lie Five knows they are aware of, judging by the way they roll their eyes.  Five grunts, blatantly ignoring the flood of relief that comes with the presence of his partner crouching next to him, playing idly with their pistol. He takes note to avoid their gaze, if only to save himself from the shit-eating grin probably rooting its way to their chapped, cherry stained lips.</em>
</p><p><em> “And, for </em>your <em>information,” Five masks his relief with pointed venom, “that’s not how quid quad pro works.” </em></p><p>
  <em>“Sure.” His partner quips, voice laced with a particular sarcasm that makes him tense. His ghosts who swarm, ravenous, decaying the bones of his spine. The ghosts are quick to remind him of his quick-witted brother, a lifetime ago, and he’s quick to bite back the feeling festering, a poison threatening to crawl into his throat from the catacombs of his stomach and take his life right there and then. Five distracts himself by silently watching as his partner rolls their Commission-issued suit sleeves up their arms with haste, baring a litter of scars engraved on each olive skinned armed and he frowns. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>This was peculiar only in the sense that the general consensus surrounding their fame amongst Commission chatter was that his partner, in all their five foot six, chicken legged glory, was unmarkable. Unkillable. A God in their own right.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>***</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>He himself had taken that theory into practice, during the eery summer haze of their first mission together. Six shotgun shells. Three to the abdomen. Two to the Commission target. One to his partner’s left cheek, just under their freckle shaped like the top of a dandelion seed. They didn’t fight back. Church bells were ringing all evening. The body, limp. He waited there all evening before leaving, led by the chilled hymn of nightfall.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>That night something felt wrong. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Five was never a religious man. But that morning he witnessed something close to ungodly. That morning there were four shotgun shells by his bedside and a note similar to the one he received from the Commission the day he left with his new partner; all items tainted with a dead man’s vengeance. It looked a lot like blood.</em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>The note read: ELIMINATE YOUR PARTNER FOR IMMEDIATE TERMINATION OF YOUR CONTRACT.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He looked at the note in shock.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He had burnt his while drinking his evening coffee in front of their dead corpse the night before. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>***</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Perhaps if he wasn’t Five and if he were a man who didn’t have the weight of the world on his shoulders, perhaps if he were a man who cared, he would have wondered why each mark feels like sharp teeth on the raw flesh of his ribs.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But he couldn’t afford to be. Not now. Not with his siblings so close.</em>
</p><p><em>He watches as they remove the dead body off him with a loud </em>thud!<em>and he stifles a small, ill-mannered “dumbass” as his partner makes a face at the remnants of flesh that splatter onto their neatly ironed suit, an occurrence that happens too often. They’re quick to replace their disgust with a smile, extending a red tinged hand towards him in a silent offer to help him up, to which he ignores. </em></p><p><em>“Now, for my quad,” they continue, used to his - as they once quoted on their third mission together – signature “</em>Stick Up My Ass<em>”</em>n<em>ess, wiping the guts on their hands on their pants, which Five bites back a comment along the defeats the original purpose. He regrets teaching them the term. “How about you shave off that god forsaken thing you call a beard and I’ll count both quads you owe me as one.”</em></p><p>
  <em>“I’d rather chew the Handler’s ear off.”</em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>“Interesting. I think she’d like that.”</em>
</p><p>
  
  <em>“You. Are. Nauseating. Did you know that?”</em>
</p><p><em>They smile. It’s genuine. The ghosts sink deeper in his spine. He feels them ravaging. “And you’d be a dead man without me.”</em><br/>
<br/>
Death is always waiting.<em>“Eat shit.” </em></p><p>
  <em>“Can’t save the world if you’re dead, Five.”</em>
</p><p>I told you so. <em>He curses his father under the tongue he didn’t realise he was biting.</em></p><p>
  <em>The blood tastes a lot like a dead man’s vengeance.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>“O,” He pauses as their name rolls off his tongue. It’s been a long time. The tenderness in his voice frightens him.</p><p>“Lila is alive.” He can’t believe the next thing he’s about to say to them is a lie. The taste in his mouth is bitter. “I can tell you where she is, just let my brother go.”</p><p>Brows furrow as they take a second to contemplate Five’s words. O reprehends and releases a near un-conscious Diego but steals a dagger from his sheath as he collapses to the floor, gasping for air.</p><p>They approach him. Silent. Livid. They haven’t aged at all. They’ve looked the same age for as long as he can remember. Their obsidian eyes look older though. Their eyes do not speak of the things they’ve seen. They did once though.</p><p>He feels the ghosts festering in his spine once more. He hasn’t felt them in a long time.</p><p>They speak, examining Diego’s knife idly in the silver of the moonlight before tossing it to the wooden floor and their anger with it.</p><p> </p><p>They look tired.</p><p>He’s tired, too.</p><p> </p><p>“I know. She was just here.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>love how o was willing to throw hands with luther and diego but outtied as soon as vanya and allison came into play. respectable luv have a nice day x</p><p>sorry that it was late!! let me know what you think of it!!</p><p>also so sorry for the flashback within a flashback lmfao</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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